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Wednesday, 11 April 2018

207. ZEN REMARKS

207. Can Zen help us abandon greed, hatred and ignorance? Can it enable us to turn around delusive thoughts and passions? Can the practice of Zen uproot our deep seated cravings? Can Zen awaken us from our dream of separateness? If Zen would make good its claim to being a way of salvation, it must needs demonstrate that its practitioner, at least one who is said to be a realized enlightened practitioner, can walk free in the fullness of life. But the biographies of a number of so-called enlightened masters in the past century or so must here give us pause. Thinking about this I cannot help calling to mind something Heidegger said, something to the effect that 'only a god can save us'. And Zen, of course, is said to be a non-theistic religion. Could it be that Zen needs, not 'a god' but God? But acknowledging God, from the Zen point of view, is said to land us in dualism. Perhaps the problem here is not God but the concepts and images we have of God.